


Hero

by RebelxPen



Category: Fantasy - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Adoption, Bullying, Dragons, Friendship, Gen, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 17:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16665154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebelxPen/pseuds/RebelxPen
Summary: An ancient dragon is forced into hiding after an adventuring party finds him and attacks him, nearly to death. He takes refuge in another shape in a city where he meets a young girl and finds a new purpose.





	Hero

Prompt One: A dragon guardian with nothing to protect finds a small human orphan child who has been blinded and can’t see. She becomes his charge. 

The city of Annise looked grand and large so near to the earth. Time passed more slowly and the lives of the mortal creatures surrounding him seemed far shorter than he ever remembered. Nearly half a century had come and gone in this small form, taken in a desperate attempt in preservering his life in the face of his enemies. They came in the night, well into winter when he slumbered far below the earth and stone of his mountain dreaming the years away as the world continued to turn. He knew not how the adventure party learned of his lair, or how they managed to find him without his magic sensing them, but Talos the Verdant, Dragon of the Eastern Plains, Talos the Wise, the Ever-Old, had barely escaped with his life and every single one of his attackers yet lived. 

Now there was an emptiness within, deep and yawning like a cavern with no end. His body struggled to heal, great wounds carved into him by mages and knights in that battle so long ago ran deep. And, yet, his failure to protect and keep his horde ran even deeper; his pride shattered. 

The danger was too close, and his wounds too great to remain in his massive form, so Talos shifted in a moment of quiet into a smaller shape one that would be found non threatening by humans. Weakened as he was, it would be the shape in which he remained for quite some time. He chose the form of a scruffy old hound, a stray that could steal scraps and yet maintain enough pride to hunt for himself if he should desire it. Talos was fond of this form, comfortable as he could be out of his own true form, and the people of Annise seemed to be equally fond of the brown whiskers around his muzzle, and the way one ear folded down while the other stood straight at attention. 

Annise looked upon dogs as holy, a symbol of their goddess--the goddess of the hunt who kept a faithful canine forever at her side. It allowed him more freedom and safe harbor than he might have found in any other place where the strays were seen more as rodents. 

It was a rest he sorely needed. 

Today, Talos strolled lazily through the city streets, tongue lapping at his snout after a hot meal from a local tavern. In the center of the city was a small square with grass and sunlight. A tree stood tall and strong, older than the cobblestone that developed around it, and nestled in the embrace of its roots was a large, cool pool of clean water. It was a haven for the local dogs to rest and escape the hustle of busy people--the grabbing, chubby hands of the little human hatchlings, though he never minded them much. There was a purity in children that their elders often lacked, though they had their times of corruption, as well. But, then, what youngling had ever escaped the influence of their forebears? 

He could see the bold leaves of the tree cresting the local bakery just a short distance ahead when the sound of a crash made him pause. The crash was not unusual--humans were clumsy, but the sound that followed had him turning slowly toward a narrow alleyway as his ears perked and twitched.

“Come on,” a voice said, dripping with mockery and cracking in the way the voice of a young male did on the cusp of manhood. “Who shoved you?”

Talos pinned his ears back in a frown and huffed a hot breath through his nose. Three boys stood circled around a young girl, dwarfing her with their sizes and lording the difference over her like the predators they were. A pack of wolves on a faun. 

Something about the girl yanked at him, sparked the inner flame that had grown so dim in the recent years and Talos had to force himself to remain hidden. She was small and slight, with bones like a bird and long dirty hair tangled into a nest any rat would be proud of. Her face was damp from tears that turned the dirt on her cheeks to mud. As he watched, she shrank away from the boys, cowering against the stone wall as she tried to make herself smaller, raising her tiny hands up to shield her face. 

It was a useless gesture, for one of the boys lashed out with a vicious slap that snapped her face to one side. The girl cried out in pain, a sob shaking her frail frame and when she turned away from her oppressors, she turned toward Talos and he could smell the blood trickling from her nose before he even caught sight of it. 

“Who slapped you?” one of the boys asked, giving her a rough jab in the side. “What’s the matter? Are you mute, as well as blind?”

Blind? Talos inched closer and focused on her small face again, but this time, he found her eyes. Humans typically had such expressive eyes, their gazes all the colors of the earth and yet this hatchling--this child had nothing but white-grey orbs peering out at the world, as if the gods had left her unfinished. His heart twisted at the thought. 

“Yeah! Can’t you talk?” 

Talos’s chest began to burn within, the claws on the ends of his paws elongating as his true form itched for release. A growl rumbled up within him, but as it echoed off the walls of the alley, the girl surprised them all and turned on the boys. Talos went unnoticed as she suddenly surged up, brandishing a stick from seemingly nowhere and swung it hard in the direction of their voices. 

“Leave me alone!” she cried, swinging again, the stick whistling through the air as it found no purchase.

Talos’s doggy lips spread open in something akin to a smile and he stood there a moment longer, admiring the fire in her, but then the boy in the middle caught her stick and yanked. 

“Oh, so now you have some fire, eh?” he asked, and began to sing-song a taunt as he jerked it out of her grasp and shoved her back against the wall hard. “Ih-reen-ah the blind. Ih-reen-ah the blind.” He snapped her stick over one knee. “See how she cries. She how she cries. She--” 

Talos could hear no more. He threw himself between them, shielding her from their sight as he bared his sharp teeth. The boys recoiled with a cry of their own, and perhaps...perhaps Talos allowed his teeth to sharpen that much more. 

“What in the hells is--What sort of dog is that?” one demanded, eyes wide in alarm. 

You will plague her no more, Talos thought as he growled again, louder now as he gnashed his teeth. She is mine.

Was she? He glanced back at the girl, seeing now how small she truly was, how frail. She was malnourished, underfed, and there was a hint of illness at the edge of her scent. He turned his attention back to the boys who at least had the good sense to look afraid, and took a step closer to them. With a loud, vicious bark, Talos felt his hackles rise on the back of his shoulders. 

“All right!” the leader yelled, throwing up his hands as if they might save him. “All right, you can have her! We’re going!” 

“She wasn’t any fun anymore, anyway,” another muttered as they turned to go.

He watched them go until they were out of sight, hidden amidst the crowd of people milling in the street and then he turned back to find the girl hugging her knees to her chest and weeping. His anger bled away, the growl dissolving into a low whine as he returned to her side. She flinched at the sound of his approach and he paused. 

“Who--Who is it?” she sniffled wetly, blinking her unseeing eyes around. “Who’s there?”   
He whined again softly and lowered himself to his belly before crawling closer, wagging his tail back and forth across the dusty ground so that she might hear it sweeping. She must have recognized the sounds, for her shoulders slumped and the tension eased from her limbs as her dirty face turned toward him. 

“He--hello?” Hesitantly, she stretched out her hand, palm up in his direction. 

It’s all right, he thought, and this time, he pushed the thoughts outward into the atmosphere around them, releasing a rush of warmth with a heated breath from within. It’s all right, little one. You’re safe now. No one will harm you again. You’re safe.

She shook like a tiny earthquake and he crawled closer until he could rest his head in her palm and Talos let out a soft sound, nuzzling closer and she seemed to shatter at the gesture. With a sob, she folded over him and hid her face in the scruff of his neck, hugging his neck tight. Talos pushed himself up to sit and curled around her, inching closer to offer her his warmth as she wept. Something settled inside him, somewhere deep that touched the gaping wounds left behind by the failure that led him here. 

“You saved me,” she whispered, brittle with tears. “You good dog. You saved me.”  
A long while passed like that, the two of them sitting together in a tangle of fur and ratty clothes before she drew away. Talos looked up at her expectantly, his head quirked to one side and licked her dirty cheek clean of tears, pleased when it inspired a smile to alight upon her face. That smile pierced him deeper than any spear ever would, and he licked her again, this time fonder. 

"My name is Irena," she said, still smiling as she cupped his cheek and stroked her thumb over his fur. "I think I'll call you Hero. Will you stay with me?" 

Talos's eyes fell closed and he swallowed hard, grateful she could not see him and feeling cruel for it. Unlike his brethren, he had never been a cruel dragon, only desiring to be left in peace while they pillaged and destroyed and took joy in the fear they inspired. He had always been called the coward of their kind, and yet he was no coward. Still, that small word. Hero. It felt big--even to a dragon. 

He nuzzled into her throat, snuffling beneath her ear and earned himself a laugh as she cringed away. 

"That tickles."

Yes, little Irena. He thought. I will stay.


End file.
